Toledo coffee aids Food for Thought

Toledoan Lance Roper comes up with his best ideas when he drinks coffee.

Actual Coffee is collaborating to raise funds for Food For Thought. Photo by Andrew Weber Photography

“Coffee has the ability to be a catalyst for creativity,” he said. “My idea to start a coffee roasting company happened over a cup of coffee.”

For two years, Roper has roasted coffee beans with his company, Actual Coffee. His goal is to bring ethically sourced coffee to Toledo, benefiting both the company and the farmers growing the beans.

“A lot of the corporate giants don’t want people to know that really poor people grow our coffee. They want to shield that because it doesn’t make you feel good,” Roper said. “One of the things I’m trying to work against is that. I’m going to show everyone where my coffee comes from, who grows it and I’m going to be really proud of it because they’re getting sometimes quadruple what fair trade would pay and we’re working together to make the coffee industry more sustainable as a whole.”

In February, Roper started a Kickstarter campaign to buy a roaster to process mass quantities of coffee beans.

On March 3, he met his goal of $15,000; he said it was an emotional roller coaster.

“It’s a nightmare,” he said. “Kickstarter’s amazing … but the amount that people pledge changes so much. You get a spike in the beginning, nothing in the middle and then a spike near the end. It just messes with your head the entire time.”

Roper said he didn’t have a plan for if he didn’t get enough funds for the roaster.

“That was such a crazy time in my life,” he said. “I had just gotten engaged, my brother was getting married … life was really busy.”

Roper said he was also in full-time training for his job in tech support at Apple at the time.

Roper watched his campaign end while he was filling the role of best man at his brother’s wedding. The Kickstarter app on his iPhone would notify him whenever someone would pledge. He said he couldn’t celebrate the victory properly because of the wedding.

“It was more about celebrating my brother’s wedding. … I was trying to do a speech last minute,” he said.

With the funds, Roper purchased a used roaster the size of a refrigerator from outside of Phoenix, Ariz. It is now in a storefront on Superior Street, a few doors down from where he lives in Rossford. It’s “way better” than the home roaster he was using before, he said.

“The coffee that I roast now taste so much better,” Roper said. “It’s much more of a manual process, but the results are incredible.”

With the roaster, Roper can roast seven pounds of beans every 15 minutes.

“I have to be careful: I can roast way more coffee than what I can sell,” Roper said.

Roper has increased sales online at actualcoffee.com. He started a subscription service, where customers can have coffee delivered to them every other week for $25 (for one pound) or $35 (for two pounds).

Roper is looking for more wholesale partners. He said he wants to cooperatively work with clients to make the coffee they serve the best it can be. He currently sells bags at The Flying Joe in Perrysburg’s Levis Commons for $8-$9.

Roper recently began a partnership with Toledo’s Food For Thought. He said he and Food for Thought’s Chief Thought Officer Sam Melden “go way back.”

“Food For Thought and Actual Coffee have similar values and similar missions,” Roper said. “Food For Thought is a social justice system that brings food to the hungry people of Toledo. Actual Coffee kind of does the same thing but on a global perspective.”

Roper said he is also passionate about benefiting the people of his hometown.

“If someone buys a bag of Food For Thought coffee, Food For Thought can turn that into 20 or more pounds of food. That one bag has a lot of impact,” Roper said.

He said he’s been thinking about what a coffee shop would do to an area that isn’t innovated.

“When someone sits inside a coffee shop and has a delicious cup of coffee, what kinds of ideas do they have, what do they later go out and do with that idea?” he said. “It opens up brainwaves that you otherwise wouldn’t have. I don’t know the science behind that; it’s more than just caffeine.”

Local hopes to get a ‘kickstart’ on coffee roaster

He would visit a friend who worked at the former location in Fallen Timbers. One day, Roper’s friend let him flip through a user manual.

Andrew Weber Photography

“I probably wasn’t allowed to read [it],” Roper said.

He found it interesting that different continents produce different flavors of coffee. Soon after, he bought a French press and started making coffee regularly.

“I became known as the coffee guy after that,” Roper said.

For two years, Roper has roasted his own beans with his company, Actual Coffee. With a goal of bringing ethically-sourced coffee to Toledo, Roper roasts beans at home to sell. Roper means to benefit the coffee company and the farmers growing the beans.

“When we care about the coffee that we roast, we can get way better tasting coffee as well,” Roper said. “It’s mutually beneficial for everyone.

“In our area, it’s my belief that we really have poor coffee quality, generally speaking,” Roper said. “The majority of the people around here don’t know what they’re missing out on and as a result … they’re drinking coffee that isn’t as good. But they have to drink it because they have to wake up.”

His beans are available at actualcoffee.com. He also sells bags at The Flying Joe in Perrysburg’s Levis Commons and Bleak House Coffee on Madison Avenue for $8-$9.

“Right now, I’m paying for coffee to be imported and shipped to me,” Roper said. “I’m paying for that service from a company [in San Francisco] that I trust ethically. But, I do have to pay for that, and it makes it more expensive.”

But because of demand, he would like to take the next step with his business. He would like to own his own coffee shop one day, but for now is hoping to purchase the San Franciscan SF-6, an American-made coffee roaster that costs $15,000.

“I’m not huge on all-American stuff,” Roper said. “I’m not going to buy a Chevy over a BMW because it’s American. I don’t think that necessarily communicates quality. But in the case of this roaster, it absolutely does.”

The bigger roaster will allow Roper to roast mass quantities of beans so he can start selling it to more people.

“Right now, not many people know they can buy coffee from me and I keep it that way only because I couldn’t produce it,” Roper said. “There are a lot of restaurants and coffee shops that want to buy my coffee because they’ve had it and they love it but my capacity in the roaster that I have now just won’t allow that.”

Roper said expanding his business will also allow him to bring different flavors of coffee to the area.

“It’ll make the coffee taste better too, honestly,” Roper said. “The roaster that I have now is really small. It’s not really the most useful machine.”

In order to purchase the new roaster, Roper took to the funding platform Kickstarter.com. The site explains Roper’s story and what the money will be going toward.

“I’m a young guy,” Roper said. “It’s difficult to get funding for me. I’m not quite the profile that a bank wants to lend to. So Kickstarter is one of my few options, actually.”

Roper said this is a chance for the people of Toledo to help their community grow.

“I care about the city,” Roper said. “I want to give back to the city.”

Roper said he has been watching the Kickstarter pledges obsessively. The campaign lasts until 8:58 a.m. March 3. If the goal is not reached, Roper doesn’t get any money.

There are also gifts included in the pledges people can make: For those who pledge $5, Roper will send a handwritten postcard, $15 gets an Actual Coffee mug, $25 is a pound of Actual Coffee beans and pledging $30 gets an Actual Coffee T-shirt. Pledgers can give more, if they wish.

As of Feb. 25, Roper has been pledged $10,002 of the needed $15,000. To make a pledge, visit this Kickstarter page.